Hot Flash Forum!
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Mine too came with menopause and not BC though I am chalking it up to the hot flashes which do come from fewer hormones. Which came first, the chicken or the egg??
Had a brainstorm, a make lemonade out of lemons moment. When you have turned the ChillowPlus into a heating pad, turned a fan on High and tossed off all the covers, toss the "heating pad" over to your DH, in my case over to Her Yorkinesses.
Barb
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Sas, I had to laugh at your comment about not getting out of bed until you have a flash. In the cold weather months I will wait until I feel one coming on then I will walk to the mailbox. Also anything else I have to go outside for. The cold feels so good....then I freeze afterwards because my body is damp.
I had a hysterectomy 3 months ago and I told my husband "it would be nice if these hot flashes went away with the ovaries"....I did think a miracle happened because I did not have any flashes for several days.....but no such luck....they came back but it was nice while it lasted.
I always sweat...sometimes a little sometimes a lot.
I wonder if a vegan diet would help. Anyone out there who is a vegan and still have flashes?
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I too have the hot flashes without sweating.
I went through natural menopause at 37 and I had hot flashes and some sweating then. Went on HRT and all was lovely. Now getting bc at 49 going off HRT and am now 51 - no sweating, don't need much deoderant where in HS I'd be drenched and sweating before I even left the house it was horrible - so was over active in youth. Being off estrogen have noticed I get headaches all the time but even when I exercise I do not sweat like I used to????
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I too have waited in bed (or some other place when I am feeling cold) for a hot flash to warm me up...never takes long. My husband just became a vegan. (Un)fortunately, he doens't have hot flashes or I'd have him be a ginny pig
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Just goes to show ya--------DF's versus WF's. I wonder why I've switched? Anyone else switch? There has to be a meaning behind this. Conspiracy Theory LOL
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I am wondering if my reducing exercise is the culprit of my new hot flashes that won't go away. I have had the hot flashes before but they always go away. This time they don't seem to be leaving. But I have also not been exercising as much because I am trying to gain some weight for my reconstruction. I seriously think this may be the reason. Has anyone else every notice a correlation with exercise and Hot flashes?
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Sherry - Mine are a little less intense and a tiny bit less frequent if I exercise. Not a huge effect but I think exercise helps.0
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I have finally put on some weight so I may go back to at least doing yoga twice a week and walking once or twice a week. Would not be as much as before but at least I will be moving and maybe the hotflashes will settle down.
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Sherry I think they are more if I don't exercise, My exercise seems to be in spurts. My head definitely feels clearer when I exersise. But hese dry flashes seem to be all the time. in some part of my body , and no preflash aura. The weights an approach avoidance situation isn't it. __You want to for the sx, but all your life you have done avoidance of weight gain.
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I am with ya ladies! I wonder if time of year has anything to do with the increase in flashing/sweating???? Groping at straws here.
But, reading these past posts I swear is setting me off and now I goota pee! Definitly have the flash?pee syndrome and it drives me nuts! I never used to wake up at night to pee, but having to pee was what woke me up in the morn! I have both dry and wet flashes, if I feel it coming on and react fast enough sometimes I can avert the sweats if I can cool down really fast. Mine are way more extreme at nite and seem to fire up as soon as I lie down to try sleep so............being prone seems to worsen it for me???? If I can sleep semi-sitting it is;nt as bad. Wonder if out REAM also plays a factor in all this??? UGH, another possible 10 yrs of this is unimaginable. So tempted to go back to HRT.........it does have it's good points, sleep being one of them!
Thanks for the Chillow review!! I actually had someone at work google that for me tonite and would have purchased one if they sold them here! AH, a nice cool pillow does help, I am flipping mine all nite to the cooler side!
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I just came across some interesting info while researching osteoporosis
Bone loss and hot flashes are related
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Linda - That's intersting! Do you know what they suggest for strengthenin the adrenal glands? "At the Center for Better Bones, this begins with strengthening the adrenal glands and then moving on to a variety of natural approaches to smooth out the menopausal transition, thus reducing the incidence of menopausal symptoms."0
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Omas Dr Susan Browns whole blog has many good topics.Thanks for bringing her here
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Based on the study that article was writing about, bone loss and hot flashes appear to be related in some way. However, this is much the same as the "link" between Vit. D and women with B/C. Does a cause b, does b cause a, or does unknown c cause both or either?
The article fails to point out the possibility of a factor that already had caused them to have less dense bones was in existence before the hot flashes.
Then, it implies that of the group, the perimenopausals and post menopausals also had a greater breakdown. Well, the average woman, with average bone density will probably lose more bone at the onset of menopause just due to the lack of estrogen, hot flashes or no hot flases.
Finally, she supposed that "cooling the hot flashes" will improve bone loss. There is absolutely nothing to support that illogical conclusion.
I don't care for that article or the assumptions the author jumps to. I have not read the actual study, which may demonstrate the relation better. My comments are strictly about as it was presented in the article.
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Sas - It was Linda54 that deserves the credit!0
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elimar - Association studies are frustrating! How about the one about tall women get more BC? Did you see that one?0
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Omaz, Heard about it. Have they broken down B/C or hot flashes by the Zodiac signs yet? Sheesh!0
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Re the better bones article. What about post menopausal women who are on Tamoxifen. I have lots of flashing, and yet they say that the T is supposed to help bone loss in menopausal women.
Also, I agree with what elimar stated about bone loss in conjunction with menopause. I have read that women have the most bone loss in the 5 years following menopause. For lots of us, that is just where we are when we are diagnosed with BC and start a AI. To me it seems that it's the natural course of things, and until bone density tests would not have been known.
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I haven't read all the input in this thread but I'm going to jump in anyway. I'm Stage IV w/mets. I'm on Herceptin (triple bag every three week ) and Arimidex (once a day). When I work, I have a fan at my feet blowing upward. When I'm home, I have a fan blowing when I'm sitting in the living room. When I go to sleep, I have a fan on about 2 feet away from my face/body. My daughter gave me a terry cloth covered thing that you put in the freezer and then put it around your neck to cool off. It works. What worked better this summer? We brought a foot tub and a bag of ice cubes with us to outside events. I put my feet in the tub, my partner pours in the ice, as needed. That really does the job! My onc says it's the arimidex. By the way, I'm over the hill and when I went through menopause 17 years ago, it was a breeze compared to this. Now I'll finish reading the earlier responses.
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I just thought the relation of hot flashes to bone density was something else to look at. Aren't we always looking for something to blame the flashes on.....LOL
Why do some women never experience hot flashes? If we are all made the same way I would think we all would suffer the same when our hormones took a nose dive. I have several clients in their 70's and 80's who have never had a flash!!!!
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My mom never had a hot flash or night sweats worth mentioning at the time or worth remembering when I asked her about it later. Yet she had osteoporosis bad enough to get the "hunchback" look. (Poor her, she drank milk--calcium & Vit D--her whole life, just 'cause she liked it. While it went well with her graham crackers, it didn't do her bones much good.)
Got my Dx and got on Tamox. during perimenopause. My hot flashes were pretty intense. Is is because I am getting the double-barrel effect of the drug plus natural menopause. Who knows? I can't separate the two.
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Elimar---Welcome here, come and stay please. Dr Susan Browns Blog. I found it interesting . Any search takes a huge task. When I was seriously into it, might scan 100-200 articles. Evidence based and non evidence based-----sift and sift down to the best few to 20-25 articles, depending on the what/ when/ where/ why of the search. Just as Omaz says someone published a tall and porosis link or what ever. Brown has an archive list, that I read what interested me. I don't hang my hat on any single article or person's word. I do however like when people are willing to express an opinion just as you did now. Brown does the same when you look at her archives..She quotes the articles and her opinion, then it allows me to do further research by going to the original article. The beef I have with to many alternative sites is they don't follow that step, taking it back to evidence base research. Yet ,I follow many alternative things.
As far as Dexascan. It was available in the facility I worked in , in 1996. I was tested. 46y/o Just before or after a hyster/bso---not long enough to have made a difference. I showed evidence of porosis and penia---forget which was where. Went on Fosamax. Next scan a bit > a year later, I was "normal". Duh fosamax miracle drug Yeah--------NO< NO< NO. The age graphs changed b/c I moved into the age range for expected normals for that age. I would not have known this had I not asked for the hard copy each time. My dots stayed the same the graph moved down. LOL.
Elimar Linda and Amontro, if you find the time, please read from the beginning, Many women have offered insights and observations. Our plan is to do a survey. I said I'd get started on the survey once my yearly testing was done. Well looks like that won't happen.
Brain MRI changed. I have given my meningioma that was dx'd the same day as BC in Jan 2009 a name now, b/c "little bean" is going to make me jump through hoops.
Thank God for the Internet. The docs haven't seen the reports yet b/c I pick them up at Medical Records as soon as whomever needs to sign off i.e radiology, pathology etc. I then can do my own research. Then able to walk into docs office and say for example, the only ones qualified for my type of problem are in Tampa and Orlando.----out of network. No one in my plans network has advanced out of the 90's treatment approach. I know that now b/c I researched each hospitals capabilities. So, unless they have not updated there web sites, it will be the battle of the network approval.
Team hotflashers----unless anyone objects, I'm going to contact Freedman's office and see if he will take on the challenge. If he does, what he will really do is assign one or more Fellows or Senior Residents with a first year resident(they get to do the grunt work). And let them do the work. BCO gets acknowledge as source, Freedman does the overseeing work and gets his name first on the article, they get another publishable article. Then Freedman get's to go to conferences and speak as the expert. We all win.
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Amontro------love the foot ice bath --that is a first for this site. I have used the pool as a fall inplace when to hot, but your ice bath is transportable. Doable at bedside, with a cooler of ice for the most severe cases. Not subject to seasonal problems. Has a lot of potential Thanks
Suggest that if anyone does it at bedside , get used to turning a light on when getting up. I changed the place of Schats water /food dish and did a nasty header in the dark. Lesson learned to late
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SAS, I have read this thread occasionally, and posted sporadically since the thread was about a week old. I'm on Effexor now, not flashing like I used to, so I don't have too much to go on about as far as the usual suffering the hormonal drugs bring on. I guess I'll just deal with either the "withdrawl from Hell" or a lifetime Effexor addiction when my Tamoxi-time is up. (Actually, the Effexor is something I take off-label for FM, it just happens to have that other therapeutic effect of diffusing the flashes, which is a bonus for me.)
I think, a while back, you were interested in the "aura" that some were having as a precursor to having a hot flash. That is something I do not have, so had nothing to say about it. Good Luck with the survey.
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I use cooling neck wraps from polar breeze bandanas.com. I have several which I keep in the fridge. Approximately $7 each.
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K8Sonny, we think alike. I too, believe that quality of life is just as important as quantity. I also have tried the gelatinized maca, hoping it would help boost my libido and improve the hot flashes. Unfortunately, all it did was cause me a lot of gas pains, which added to my inability to sleep well at night. It did give me a "reved up" feeling throughout the day, which was neither good nor bad. I've tried many other herbals, which are supposed to improve menopausal symptoms, but most did nothing for me. Only time they helped was when I tried a phytoestrogen formula earlier on in my first year of the perimenopausal transition. It improved libido, vaginal dryness, hot flashes, and my periods became regular again for awhile. I'm postmenopausal now for over a year and recently retried the same formula and it didn't help. Don't know if tamoxifen is affecting things or if it's due to the further decline of hormone levels.
I usually don't sweat during a hot flash either, unless I've just gotten out of the shower and hair is still wet or during the night when I'm under the covers, then I'll awaken soaked.
Sherry, I'd almost guarantee that exercise is the reason why flashes have increased for you, because I've noticed the same effect myself when I slack off on the exercising.
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Rose I was taking phyoestrogens when i was dx and my BS told me to through them away. She said they work differenlty than estrogen hormons but are just as bad for us if we are ER+.
I took a lunesta last night and slept much better. Still had the hot flashes but was able to sleep better in between. Went to the endocrinologist yesterday and all my adrenals are working fine and my testosterone is low but he does not want to treat it because of high family risk factor of cardiac disease. But found out I am in peri-menopause. Funny in Jan hormones were checked and I was no where close to peri-menopause. Started Tamoxifen the begin of Feb and now Sept my FSH is so high I am almost done with peri-menopause. Will go back in 6 months and have everything checked again. I see my MO in two weeks so I'll share all this with him. so I guess going through menopause and tamox together are my hot flash culprits. I will start my exercise again since I did gain 4 pounds in two weeks which I needed to do. I have 10 more pounds to go, maybe 15, but hoping 10 will be enough. Hopefully the exercise will help.
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I definitely have an aura before a flash, every single time. It's almost a mild flu-like feeling. I feel uneasy, like my skin doesn't fit right suddenly, then it blooms into glimmer of anxiety, sort of a fight-or-flight kind of feeling. My heart starts pounding faster. Then the heat wave hits. I glaze over for a minute with the really bad ones, and can't really listen very well to what's going on around me. Afterward, I have a wave of depression, exhaustion, vulnerability and despair that lasts anywhere from five minutes to an hour.
~lulubee
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lulubee
You could be describing my flashes except when mine is over I feel fine.
It is hard for me to concentrate on anything when I feel one coming on.
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Elimar, glad to hear the Effexor is working for you, too! Yeah!
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